The Battle of Britton's Lane

On a quiet, county road five miles southeast of Denmark,
Tennessee, a fierce struggle between opposing armies took place
on September 1, 1862. Only half-dozen historical markers dot the
site, and there are no massive battlefield maps or push-button
audio tapes to guide the curious observer. Britton's Lane boasts
no cannons lining the road as does Shiloh or Stone's River; in
fact, the countryside is so calm and pastoral that it's hard to
believe the land has witnessed anything more than an occasional
disagreement between neighbors. Yet thousands of brave soldiers
from Tennessee, Alabama, Missouri, Louisiana, Arkansas,
Mississippi, Illinois, and Ohio fought and died there in a
feverish, four-hour battle. Many of those soldiers were from
Madison County, and some tendered the supreme sacrifice within
ten miles of their own homes.

Following the stunning Union victories of Fort Henry, Fort
Donelson and Shiloh in the spring of 1862, Federal General
Jeremiah Sullivan marched into Jackson on June 6th and occupied
the city. Most Madison County citizens, being of southern
sentiment, were disappointed and disillusioned by the Federal
hold on West Tennessee. Throughout the hot summer months they
hoped everyday for liberation by the Confederate Army now
quartered in north Mississippi.

The Federal occupation army used Jackson primarily as
a quartermaster depot in 1862, sending supplies to its
lead armies farther south. Situated around the city,
along critical points of the railroad line and at
important bridges and river crossings, were isolated
detachments of Union soldiers. Their mission was to guard
against forays by Confederates against the Union supply
line, and to give early warning of an attack on Jackson.
When Federal outposts sent word to Jackson on August 28th
that a Confederate General by the name of Armstrong was
marching north from Mississippi with 10,000 men, the
secessionists in Jackson were elated; and the Federals
and their sympathizers began scurrying about like ants to
fortify the city.

The commander of all Confederate cavalry in the West, Major
General Sterling Price, had indeed ordered Colonel Frank C.
Armstrong to take his cavalry brigade north from Holly Springs,
Mississippi into West Tennessee. Despite the exaggerated reports,
Armstrong never had more than 3,300 troopers, and his mission was
not to liberate Jackson. Armstrong's mission was classic for
cavalry - raid north along the Mississippi and Tennessee Central
Railroad, harass the enemy, stir-up the Federal detachments,
interdict and disrupt the enemy's supply line, and do not become
decisively engaged.

The man that Sterling Price chose to command the mission,
Frank Crawford Armstrong, had only a year before been a Federal
officer at the Battle of Bull Run. Having reconsidered his
allegiance in the fall of 1861, Armstrong had earned his
commander's confidence by performing well at the Battle of Pea
Ridge in Arkansas, and received command of his own brigade.

On the 22nd of August, Acting Brigadier General Armstrong left
Guntown, Mississippi with the core of this brigade, stopping in
Holly Springs to pick up three more regiments. When he left there
a few days later (August 27th), his command was 3,300 strong,
including:

In the August 1922 issue of Confederate Veteran, C.Y.
Ford of Company G., 2nd Missouri Cavalry describes this group as
"a magnificent body of fighting cavalry, ready and eager to
measure arms with the Federal[s]." They camped the night of
the 27th of August within four miles of LaGrange, Tennessee on a
branch of the Wolf River, and remained there on the 28th, resting
an extra day in anticipation of an arduous campaign.

While they rested, word of their approach spread
among the Federals. On the following day, Colonel Elias
S. Dennis, who would later figure dramatically in the
battle at Britton's Lane, informed Colonel M.K. Lawler,
commander of the post of Jackson, that Confederate
General Bragg was at Guntown, Mississippi with an army of
6,000 cavalry, and that the soldiers at LaGrange were
only the lead element.

After riding to within a few
miles of Bolivar, Tennessee on Friday, the 29th of
August, the Confederates were to taste their first battle
when

they encountered a Federal
garrison the following day. After some seven hours of
off-and-on skirmishing, the Federals drew back into
Bolivar at nightfall on the 30th and prepared for a
renewed attack the next day But at daylight on the 31st,
Armstrong's brigade had disappeared - bypassing the enemy
and again moving north, gobbling up isolated groups of
Federals in blockhouses guarding the railroad. They
pressed on until encountering another fortified position
at Medon Station. After driving several detachments into
the center of the community, Armstrong came upon some 150
Union soldiers barricaded behind cotton bales in the
train depot. He sent a force to reconnoiter the enemy
position, and was considering an attack when six
companies of Federal reinforcements began arriving by
train from Jackson. The Union commander at Jackson, M.K.
Lawler, claims that the reinforcements sent to Medon
Station formed in line and "charged the enemy,
driving him from the town and inflictin~ considerable
loss upon him." The 2nd Tennessee, which seen' to
have had the lead in this affair, did take some
casualties, but William Witherspoon, a private in the 7th
Tennessee Cavalry, and author of Reminiscences of 61' and
65', says the skirmish Medon Station "amounted to
not much damage on either side." John Milton Hubbard
of the same regiment, in Notes of a Private (1911),
claimed "nothing was accomplished by the attack and
several Confederates were either killed or wounded."

Believing he couldn't defeat the Union garrison without a
major or battle, Armstrong drew off to the west of Medon Station
and camped that night on the Casey Savage farm. He must have
realized that his encounters at Bolivar and Medon Station had
alerted every Federal outpost for a hundred miles, and that the
city of Jackson was bracing for an assault. In a dispatch to his
boss, General Price, Armstrong seems to suggest that his mission
has been accomplished.

. . .I have crossed the
Hatchie [river]; passed between Jackson and Bolivar;
destroyed the bridges and one mile of trestle work
between the two places, holding for more than thirty
hours the road.

The fast and arduous campaign had taken its toll on
Armstrong's soldiers. According to Leut. Col. Frank Montgomery of
the 1st Mississippi Cavalry, in his Reminiscences of a
Mississippian (1901),

Early next morning we
started on our return to camp in Mississippi, having
accomplished all we could by our raid, and took a road
leading towards a place or town called Denmark. The whole
command was worn out, and decidedly hungry, since we had
been out nearly a week, [counting the time from their
initial startpoint of Guntown, Mississippi on the 22nd of
August] and away from our wagon trains...

We were ordered not to
make any big fires, we gathered the brush and started our
fires, not that it was cold, but the corn in the field
was getting hard, September 1st, and we wanted to make
embers and ashes to roast the corn... Our supper,
exclusively a parched corn diet, breakfast ditto. Early
we mounted 'en route' to Denmark.

As they road toward Denmark, on Monday, September 1st, Frank
Montgomery confided in a fellow officer that he thought
"there would be no more fighting on this raid." But
that soldier didn't share his belief.

While marching along, it
so happened I was riding by the side of Captain Beall,
and I observed he was unusually quiet. He was always the
life of the camp, a genial, jovial gentleman. At last he
told me he was impressed by a presentiment he would be
killed before we got back to Mississippi. I laughed at
him and told him his presentiment would come to nothing
and that he himself would laugh at it on the morrow...

The conversation between Montgomery and his worried compatriot
was scarcely finished before the Southerners entered into one of
the most intense battles that many of them would experience
during the war.

From the first news of Armstrong's soiree into west Tennessee,
the Federals had made the defense of Jackson their priority. A
sergeant of the 20th Illinois Infantry, who was hospitalized in
Jackson, made the following entries in The Civil War Diary of
Allen Morgan Geer:

Monday, September 1st. 1862-. Jackson
was deemed in danger of attack and the greatest activity
prevailed in putting the city in a state of defense.

M.K. Lawler expected Armstrong in Jackson at any time, so on
August 31st he sent a message to Colonel Elias S. Dennis who
commanded a brigade stationed at Estanaula landing, some
twenty-five miles from Jackson along the Hatchie River. Lawler
ordered Dennis to strike tents, destroy what he couldn't carry,
and double-time his infantry back to Jackson to help defend the
city.

G.B. MacDonald, a musician with the 30th Illinois at
Estanaula, writes in A History of the 30th Illinois Veteran
Volunteer Infantry (1916),

... our teams had been to
Jackson for provisions, and two barrels of whiskey was in
the supply. We hurriedly packed our knapsacks and loaded
the wagons with camp equipage. The two barrels of whiskey
was cumbersome for troops on a forced march. The heads
were knocked in and the barrels upset and the whiskey
went on the ground. The boys could not stand to see such
a waste as that, and they got busy dipping it up in their
hands and drinking it, and went on their way rejoicing.

Elias S. Dennis had under his command his own 20th Illinois
Infantry, the 30th Illinois Infantry, the 4th Ohio Independent
Cavalry Company, thirty- four men of the 4th Illinois Cavalry,
and a two~un section of Battery E, 2nd Illinois Light Artillery -
all totaling some 1,500 men. As his brigade marched for Jackson,
Dennis continued to hear rumors of a large Confederate force
moving north. When he reached Denmark, he received new orders
from Lawler instructing him to march toward Medon "to
intercept the enemy near that point." Dennis camped that
night near the Presbyterian Church in Denmark.

The next morning, Monday September 1st, while Armstrong's men
finished roasting their corn and began marching toward Denmark,
Dennis' command set out along the most direct route to Medon, a
fourteen-foot wide, dusty country lane named for the wealthy
farmer Thomas Britton, who owned property along the road. Dennis
expected no battle until he reached Medon. Armstrong, now moving
west along present- day Collins Road, seems to have anticipated
no fight at all. At about 9:30 that morning, the advanced guard
of both elements ran into each other where the Steam Mill Ferry
Road intersects Collins Road and Britton's Lane today.

In front of Dennis' command was his one company of independent
cavalry, and close behind them was at least a company of infantry
serving as advance guard. Next came the 20th Illinois, his
artillery section with assorted supply trains, and the 30th
Illinois behind them. The column must have stretched some three
or four miles back in the direction of Denmark when Foster's
cavalry encountered Armstrong. According to C.Y. Ford of the 2nd
Missouri Cavalry, it appears Dennis' men saw the Confederates
first, for they had time to bring forward their two cannons from
the center of their column, and deploy skirmishers before
Armstrong's lead regiment know they were around.

... we [had] dismounted
to rest a short time and were standing by our horses,
when two pieces of artillery let loose two charges of
grapeshot into our column at point-blank range.

Sergeant Edwin H. Fay, in a letter written to his wife four
days after the battle, called it an "ambush" and blamed
local citizens loyal to the Union for "let[ing] us rush
right into it."

This began the Battle of Britton's Lane.

The realization that his 1,500 infantrymen might be facing 1
anywhere from 5,000 to 10,000 well-armed Confederate cavalry
(although there were never more than 3,300) forced Dennis to make
an immediate decision. Actually, Dennis had little choice. If he
turned and fled toward Denmark, he could not hope to outrun the
cavalry that would pursue him, and such a move might lead to the
wholesale slaughter of his brigade, or its capture at the very
least. If he chose to fight, he'd be outnumbered and probably
overwhelmed. Making a virtue of necessity, Dennis decided to take
his chances with a fight, and quickly brought the rest of the
20th Illinois into line behind a wormwood fence to support his
artillery. By selecting a strong defensive position along a
ridge, covered on the flanks by rugged terrain that the enemy's
cavalry would not be able to negotiate, he had effectively
blocked Armstrong's route of march. Dennis initially deployed
companies B and G of the 20th Illinois on the left of the road,
and the remainder of the regiment on the right. Then after
positioning his two cannon squarely in the middle of Britton's
Lane, and dispatching a courier to order the 30th Illinois
forward at the doublequick, he braced for an attack.

Immediately after taking fire, and more as a matter of reflex
than that of planning, the lead regiment of Armstrong's brigade,
the 2nd Missouri, along with Forrest's old regiment, made a hasty
charge to silence the cannon. But the supporting Union infantry
combined with the artillery to pour a heavy fire into their ranks
and drive them back.

Frank C. Armstrong's decision to fight Elias S. Dennis along
this country road in south Madison County has led to much
speculation during the past century. Why did Armstrong, after
declining to get heavily involved in two other battles - Bolivar,
where he greatly outnumbered his opponent - and Medon Station,
where a sudden, aggressive assault might have captured both the
defenders of the depot and their on-rushing reinforcements -
suddenly find it worth the price to fight at Britton's Lane? If
Armstrong believed his mission was completed, as his report and
the observations of his men would indicate, why did he not skirt
west of Dennis' position and return to Mississippi unscathed via
Estanaula? His command was full of Madison County men who knew
every road and cowpath in that part of West Tennessee, and
certainly he knew that by taking what is now called the Steam
Mill Ferry Road he need not fight Dennis at all. Dennis' infantry
were not going to catch him on foot, and given the Federals'
situation, Armstrong moving on would probably have been a relief
to Dennis. Instead he chose to fight his way through the Federals
to get to Denmark. Many have advanced theories as to why it was
so important for Armstrong to reach Denmark, suggesting
everything from the need for supplies and ammunition to a quest
for hidden gold. His reasons may never be known, but whatever
they were, Armstrong began what amounted to a four-phase attack,
and decisively committed his cavalry force against Dermis.

PHASE ONE
Hearing the artillery, Armstrong came galloping forward to the
head of the column, just in time to meet the two regiments
repulsed in their first attempt to silence the enemy cannon. It
was almost ten o'clock now, and Armstrong immediately ordered the
2nd Missouri, with Forrest's old regiment (Ltc. Balch commanding)
in support, to again charge the guns. A second time the
Confederates drew sabres and galloped toward the enemy.

One of the Federals observed that "in front, and on the
left and right were bare fields, swarming with rebels preparing
to charge. At last on they came, the ground fairly trembling
beneath their heavy tread Since the 20th Illinois had not yet
fully deployed into line, this second charge was swift and
determined enough to nearly succeed in capturing the artillery.
Many of the Southerners rode up to within several feet of the
enemy, who poured a murderous volley into them from behind the
fence. But again they were turned back with considerable loss.

PHASE TWO
It was after ten o'clock now, and still the stubborn Federals
held their grip on Britton Lane. But nearly losing their
artillery in the last charge had caused them to limber-up and
move the guns across a gully, some 300400 yards back in the
direction of Denmark. Along with the guns, the line of infantry
gradually gave ground until they reached yet another fence to
offer them cover.

Colonel W.H. (Red) Jackson's 7th Tennessee, Colonel Pinson's
1st Mississippi, and Barteau's 2nd Tennessee Cavalry (Major
Morton commanding) had been traveling in that order behind the
two lead units when the firing began. They now rushed forward and
were ordered to immediately assault the enemy position.

Ordering the 1st Mississippi to dismount and fight on foot,
Armstrong sent them on the left of the 2nd Missouri, and then
ordered the 7th and the 2nd Tennessee to charge mounted on the
right. This third attack, which may have taken place before the
Federals could re-establish their artillery in its new position,
was also repulsed, but it is most likely during this charge that
the Southerners captured several of the enemy's wagons and supply
trains, seizing them before they could safely reposition. Still
determined to drive the Federals from the field, the Confederate
commander ordered all the above units to dismount, except the 2nd
Tennessee, and to charge the enemy for a fourth time.

John Milton Hubbard of the 7th Tennessee described the scene:

The Seventh Tennessee was
ordered to charge on foot through a corn field, from
which the fodder had been stripped, against a heavy line
of infantry lying behind a stout worm fence and in the
woods. A galling fire was poured into Company E, but some
of its men reached the fence. Dr. Joe Allen of Whiteville
mounted the fence and fell dead on the enemy's side of
it... How so many men got out of that field alive is one
of those unaccountable things that sometimes occur in
war.

PHASE THREE
It was past eleven o'clock now, and Armstrong's quiet, uneventful
march to Denmark and back to Mississippi had turned into a
desperate two-hour battle that some participants said was hotter
than S~oh. These men would know, for soldiers on both sides had
fought on those bloody April days along the Tennessee River.

At last Wirt Adams' Regiment, which had been in the rear of
the march column, and Colonel Slemmon's 2nd Arkansas which
immediately preceded it, arrived at the scene of the fight.
Finally Armstrong was able to mass enough force to strike a
decisive blow against Dennis. The 7th Tennessee, 2nd Missouri,
and Balch's men were now badly mangled, and were withdrawn.
Armstrong sent Wirt Adams' men and company L of the 7th Tennessee
(which had been held out of the action thus far) on a wild and
daring charge directly into the mouth of the enemy guns. Ordering
both units to form a column of fours and charge, Armstrong struck
the decisive blow. He also sent Col. Slemmons and Col. Pinson
dismounted in support. Frank Montgomery writes,

Colonel Adams' charge was
a brilliant one and as I write I can see him as I saw him
then, charging at the head of his regiment straight at
the guns; we were not one hundred feet apart.

In October 1903 issue of Confederate Veteran, E.B. McNeil, a
participant in the fight, quotes from a letter written only a few
days after the battle:

Col. Adams, mounted on a
beautiful cream- colored mare, well to the front leading
his men at racing speed, was a conspicuous target for the
enemy, and every moment I expect to see him fall... The
fire was awful, and under the withering blast, the head
of our column went down. Those behind, unable to see for
the blinding dust, with the notes of the bugle sounding
the charge still ringing in their ears, spurred madly
forward toward the sound of the guns, only to stumble and
fall over their dead and wounded comrades and horses in
front until the narrow lane was completely blocked.

The confusion and bottleneck on the narrow lane is confirmed
by William Witherspoon's statement that while riding toward the
Federal artillerymen "the rear of the company became
tangled." Yet even though the Southerners could see the
enemy gunners desperately loading grapeshot and preparing at any
second to discharge the lethal rounds into their faces, portions
of Adams' regiment and the 7th Tennessee pressed forward, and
"in a mad bound [they] were upon them." Using their
sawed-off shotguns to clear away the gun crew (no Federal
artillerymen were listed as killed, though several were
captured), only about twenty of the attackers remained to occupy
the center of the Federal line. The other cavalry charging in
support were held up by the dead men and horses that choked the
lane. Now the two cannons Armstrong had paid so dearly to possess
were in danger of being lost, particularly since the 30th
Illinois was making timely arrival on the battlefield, having
doubl~timed at least two miles in the September heat. The fresh
Federal troops wasted no time pouring a galling fire into the
victorious rebels.

B. B. MacDonald writes,

Just before we got to the
front the rebs captured the two guns, and had the 20th
pretty well demoralized, and was making another charge
just as we were climbing a little hill, and the command
was on right into line, and firing as we came into line,
and with a yell drove the enemy back, and just had time
to form a good line with the 20th when another charge was
made.

This last charge probably refers to the dismounted men from
Pinson's and Slemmon's regiments who moved up in support of the
captured artillery. A Lieutenant Dengel, who commanded the gun
section, was captured along with ten of his men; but while the
Confederates got the guns, they didn't get the caissons, thus
they had no way to transport the weapons form the field except
for dragging them into the immediate protection of their lines.

PHASE FOUR
The arrival of the 30th Illinois probably prevented a complete
rout of Dennis' command. Many Federals had already skedaddled,
some of them not stopping until they reached Jackson. They
carried with them wild reports of the capture or destruction of
their regiment. The 20th Illinois had been steadily giving
ground, and with the poor visibility, may have suspected they
were being surrounded. Isolated defenders may have even tried to
give up. This could account for William Witherspoon's curious
observation.

The Federals were whipped
several times in that fight, had hoisted several times
the white flag, certainly an index of defeat. ...
citizens of Denmark [told that] over 200 of the Federals
had returned there and were anxious to find some one to
surrender to.

Linking up with the exhausted 20th, the 30th Illinois, under
command of Major Warren Shedd, formed a line from which the
Confederates were unable or unwilling to drive them. When the
30th joined the battle lines, a cheer rose up among the weary
defenders. A captured Federal prisoner, when asked by General
Armstrong what the noise was all about, declared that his fellow
soldiers were cheering the arrival of 'Logan's Division."

By 12:30 or 1:00 p.m., the Confederate casualties were heavy.
Montgomery reports that the 1st Mississippi Cavalry alone lost
fifty men killed and wounded. Losses were also heavy in the 7th
Tennessee and Wirt Adams' regiment.

What happened next is another source of debate and speculation
surrounding the battle. The Confederate cavalry had clearly and
decisively driven the Federals from their position, captured
their artillery, and had many of them demoralized and looking for
an end to the fight. The next tactical maneuver would normally
have been to pursue a weakened and disorganized enemy and
capture or kill as many of them as possible. But Colonel
Armstrong chose instead to consolidate his position and not to
pursue the enemy. His actions were questioned not only by later
historians and scholars, but by the very men he led at Britton's
Lane.

Montgomery writes,

While Colonel Pinson and
myself were consulting as to the advisability of renewing
the assault on the enemy by a flank movement [against the
30th Illinois], which could easily have been done, as we
believed, we were ordered back to the horses. To my
surprise then and now, the attack was not renewed, for I
am sure they were defeated...

Colonel W.H. (Red) Jackson of the 7th Tennessee said, "I
thought we had whipped the fight, and Gen. Dennis afterwards told
me he was ready to surrender." That the majority of
Federals wanted to surrender is doubtful. The battlefield was
hot, dry and dusty, and it was hard to see more than a hundred
yards. Several men in the 20th Illinois did surrender, but the
30th seems to have been ready and willing to continue the fight.
Despite the shaky condition of the Federal forces, Armstrong
chose not to press the engagement, but to march north and west
through the woods, emerging near Denmark, where he took the
Estanaula Road toward the Hatchie River. At one point in this
withdrawal, Armstrong and his escort (Company E, 2nd Tennessee
Cavalry) ran into a number of the retreating Federals - possibly
skulkers or deserters - and was nearly captured. William
Witherspoon characterized their return to Mississippi this way:

We were certainly on the
run, to say the least, a forced march, not halting or
stopping until we were ferried across the Hatchie,
sixteen miles distant, on a ferry boat.

Witherspoon's use of the phrase, "on the run," may
reflect Armstrong's sense that the noose was tightening around
his band of cavalry. The longer he tarried in West Tennessee, the
more opportunity he provided the Federals to surprise and
encircle him. His unexpected fight at Britton Lane had held up
his march for almost a full day, and he may have believed the
Union forces he bypassed at Medon were closing upon his rear.
Perhaps he figured pursuing and routing the Federals was not
worth risking his entire command in another protracted battle,
particularly since his men were already weary and bloodied from
the campaign.

The confusion about who won or lost at Britton's Lane did not
wait to surface until aging veterans gathered for reunions years
after the war. It began the day of the battle. Allen Morgan Geer
was receiving mixed signals in Jackson on the very day of the
fight.

Monday September 1st.
1862 - Prepared to go to the regiment [20th Illinois but
could not be allowed to go since their fate or locality
was not known. While at the depot news came that the 20th
and 30th was taken prisoners. This at 2 p.m. At 6 p.m.
while at supper stragglers began to come in from the
scene of action. They all declared the forces gobbled up,
heard the firing ceased: saw them surrounded, saw the
wagons overturned, artillery [taken] & the general
impression prevailed that the 20th & 30th were gone
up except the skedaddlers who were shrewd enough to get
away.

Geer and his fellow soldiers waited anxiously for more word
from the vicinity of Denmark for the rest of the day; and his
last diary entry late on the evening of September 1st offers this
simple, yet revealing phrase: "rumors came that the 20th and
30th stood ground." The next day Geer records that
"they had whipped the rebels and drove them from the
ground," and that they had "buried 180 rebels on the
field." but still uncertain about Armstrong's intentions or
his whereabouts, the Federals in Jackson remained braced for an
attack several days after the Confederates were back in
Mississippi.

For over one hundred years, veterans debated and local
historians pontificated about who won or lost the Battle of
Britton's Lane and whether or not Armstrong's Raid was a success
or failure. By the strict yardstick of a classic cavalry mission,
Armstrong did effectively harass, interdict, and destroy
the enemy's supply line. In his report to General Sterling
Price, Armstrong states "my loss was small," and he
enumerates the capture of 213 enemy prisoners and the killing or
wounding of 75 others. Sergeant Edwin H. Fay writes that the
command "marched some 300 miles in less than ten days,
fought two battles and three skirmishes, [and took] 350400
prisoners." But from the aspect of his classic cavalry
mission to not become decisively engaged, Armstrong was
unsuccessful. After the fight at Britton's Lane, where the
Confederates lost at least 100 men killed in action (as compared
to Federal casualties of 8 killed, approximately 50
wounded and more than 50 captured), Armstrong's men were
demoralized. John Milton Hubbard of the 7th Tennessee writes,

The whole command was
discouraged by the operations of this raid, and thought
that, if we had gained anything at all, we had paid
dearly for it.

On the days after the battle, several citizens of Denmark,
among them a free negro named Shedrick Pipkins and a Mr. William
Henry, buried twenty-three slain Confederates in a mass grave on
the battlefield. Others were interred separately, and one account
indicated yet another mass burial trench was dug some three miles
from the site of the fight.

The diary of a fourteen year-old girl, who lived near the
intersection of Steam Mill Ferry Road and Collins Road, describes
the horrible aftermath of the fight at Britton's lane.

Sept. 3
Very hot day. Papa got to Mr. Britton's house. Lot of
soldiers been hurt... Papa went up road to see where fite
[sp] was. Boys come here to get water for horses.
Sade[sp] they won and yank run... awfull [sp]smell
& boys hurting Papa says to Mama many died at end of
lane at woods. Papa says many horses dead on top of Boys.

... many died last nite many was
put in soil where they fell...it was to [sp] hot on
bodies and many flies... awfull [sp] smel [sp] much
sadness. Fences down, awfull [sp] flies new earth
everywhere.

The Battle of Britton's Lane produced five men who would
become general officers. Colonel (acting Brigadier) Frank
Armstrong would shortly be made a full Brigadier General, and
both William H. (Red) Jackson and Wirt Adams would rise to the
rank of general during the war. On the Federal side, Colonel
Elias S. Dennis would be promoted to general largely based upon
his performance at Britton's lane, and his subordinate, Major
Warren Shedd, who commanded the 30th Illinois at Britton's Lane,
would also be a general before the end of the war. It is quite
rare to find such a relatively small battle producing such a
large number of general officers during the War Between the
States.

Over the intervening century, the Battle of Britton's Lane and
Armstrong's Raid have generated many fascinating stories that
have remained alive in the oral tradition and written history of
Madison County and West Tennessee. No one will contend that the
battle at Britton's Lane determined the final outcome of the war;
but it forever changed the lives of the men who fought it and
many of the citizens of Denmark and Madison County. Some lives
were saved and many were tragically lost; some careers were made
and others were ended prematurely; but in the final tally,
Madison County holds its tiny share of history in what is perhaps
the nation's greatest tragedy - The Civil War.

James D. Brewer
3058-B Von Steuben Pl.
West Point, NY 10996

James D. Brewer is a U.S. Army Major presently
serving on the faculty at the United States Military Academy,
West Point, New York. A native of Jackson, and a graduate of
Jackson High School and Union University, Brewer has studied the
Battle of Britton's Lane since 1977, and serves as an advisor to
the Britton Lane Battlefield Association.